Why Did Corazon Amurao Stay Silent for Sixty Years After Richard Speck?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
This is History's Hidden Killers. Here now, Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:08)
Before I tell you what a man who knocked on the door, you need to know who was inside, because everybody who knows about serial killers knows the name Richard Speck. Almost nobody remembers their names, the victims or the ones who survived. This is Surviving Serial Killers. There are five parts series this week with History's Hidden Killers taking a look at five stories of people who lived through the worst night imaginable. The thread that runs through every one of them is the same. They saved themselves because no one else was going to do it for them.
That's what Corazon Amurao did to survive.
And what Corazon Amurao did to survive was the opposite of every survival instinct in the human body. She did nothing for six hours and it kept her alive. I'm going to talk about exactly what happened and how she survived, how she did just that. The first, the women.
Pamela Wilkling was 20 years old. She wrote in her nursing school application that she hated seeing people suffer. That's why she wanted to be a nurse, described by everybody who knew her as sweet, funny and genuinely kind. Patricia Matuskas, 20, Chicagoan, champion swimmer, talented enough for the high school water ballet team, engaged to a fellow nursing trainee. The afternoon of July 13th, 1966, Patricia found out she'd been accepted to the staff at Children's Memorial Hospital. She went to bed that night with her whole career in front of her. Suzanne Farris was 21 when her three children engaged planning a spring wedding. She wanted to be a pediatric nurse. Marianne Jordan, 20, didn't even live in the townhouse. She was visiting that night specifically to discuss Suzanne's wedding. Because Suzanne was marrying Marianne's brother. Two families about to become one. Marianne was there to plan a celebration. Gloria Jean Davy, 22, one of six children, president-elect of the Illinois Student Nurses Association. She'd been named a national sweetheart of the Future Farmers of America. She planned to join the Peace Corps after graduation. Then you had Nina Schmel, 24, the eldest, engaged to her high school sweetheart. Her classmates had voted her Queen of the Nurses Spring Dance. From the Philippines, Merlitta Garlgo, 23 She brought bamboo quackling poles from Manila and performed the tinkling dance at parties. She cooked adobo and plaited for the whole house and the American nurses loved it. Corazon Amurao recalled it later. When Merlitta cooked adobo in Pancit, they came home from the hospital and smelled the food and they said, it's good. So we invited them to join us to eat and they really liked it. That was, it was a good time that we had. Valentina Passon was 23, a lawyer's daughter from Isabella. Graduated in the top of their class in Manila. She wrote letters home telling her parents she wished they could stay in America forever before that night was over. She'd written one more letter promising to send money to fix the family house. Eight women, ages 20 to 24, student nurses, at South Chicago Community Hospital weeks from graduation, they lived together at 2319 East 100th Street in the South Deering neighborhood. They shared meals and shifts and wedding plans and the ordinary work of becoming the people they were going to be. The ninth woman in that house was Corazon Amurao, 23, exchange nurse from San Luis in the Philippines. She had been in the United States for two months, two months. She was still learning their routines, still getting used to Chicago summers, still figuring out this enormous country that she had landed in. On July 13th, 1966, a scorching summer night in Chicago around 11 p.m., someone came knocking. Richard Speck, 24, a drifter out of Kirkwood, Illinois, over 20 arrests by 25 Alcoholic, violent, criminal record across multiple states, burglary, forgery, attacking a woman. He'd worked on Great Lakes cargo boat, so he knew how to tie nautical knots. He had a tattoo on his left forearm, born to raise hell. He'd spent that evening drinking hard at several bars that night before he showed up at the townhouse with a gun and a knife. He told the women he needed money, just enough for a bus ticket to New Orleans, he said. It wasn't going to hurt anyone. He just needed the cash. They gave him money.
He didn't leave.
One of the American nurses answered the door. Speck did not force his way in violently. He came in almost politely. It's part of what made the next five hours so incomprehensible. Corazon and the other Filipino nurses, Marlita and Valentina, retreated to a closet. A roommate coaxed them out. Stay calm. He just wants cash. Gave him the money and he leaves. The American nurses spoke to the Filipino nurses reassuringly. This was manageable. This was this was just a robbery.